Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 7 week ice chest test

I have a coleman xtreme, igloo whatever they call theirs, both older, hinges and latches broke, repaired and broke again. They keep ice fine still but I have to use straps to keep the lids on while traveling. They are my fish and game meat coolers, I don't care if they get stinky, wife comments I should toss them every time she sees them.

Couple years ago Rtic had a clearance of 65qt cooler for 125.00, about double the extreme coolers but should last more than double time. I never thought I'd buy a roto cooler as I'm cheap, couldn't pass up that deal.

They all work but the coleman/igloo fall apart in a few years. I still wouldn't spend 300 bucks for a cooler but if there's a clearance again I will buy more rotos.

Kent

Some of the cheap coolers have hollow lids that don't hold the heat as well. If you have one, you can fix it by drilling a number of 1/4" holes in the bottom of the lid and filling it with non-expanding spray foam. You might need to drill an inspection hole to find out if it's hollow or not.

I have two Xtreme's. I cut up an old quilt that I throw over the top of them and they keep ice about the same as my buddy's Yeti.

I have a 70 qt Coleman extreme and love it. I'm looking at buying a couple of more for a hunt in three weeks.

Hunting around here in December means 80° during the day, maybe 50° at night. Even with a Yeti, you need to buy ice.

I have a few of the same one. They hold ice well in the summer too.

Lucky for you my mouth was free of coffee

Otherwise I might have called you a mean name on the internet and hurt your feelers

Damn that made me LOL

Yes. Were that on the north side of my house, there would be a rock solid block therein until maybe mid-March.

The best I've done with my cheap Igloo and Coleman units is 17 days in summer temps where it rarely went below the 60's at night and into the 80's to 90's during the day. . My only cooler fix is to replace plastic/rubber hinges with metal units.

A buddy has a high end unit and will be begging for ice in 3 or 4 days. I put only frozen material (usually blocks and some crushed as filler) in mine, where he tosses in frozen water jugs and then maybe 2 cases of warm beer at departure.

That two cases of warm beer will really do the trick, eh?

We must be a few degrees warmer than you down here. I could have looked for a place with a bit more tree cover, but it's just sitting on the edge of the flower bed there.

Geno

Hey, it was directed at me and even I got a chuckle out of it.

Geno

The coleman's are throw away coolers, the hinges suck and break after a few uses in cold weather, the lids fit like used condoms, they are the section 8 housing of coolers !

Lest anyone think I was trying to dissuade anyone from buying a high end cooler, that wasn't my intention. I like to buy the best equipment I can afford too, be it tools, camping gear, boots, etc.

I'd never disparage anyone choosing to hunt with a nice expensive pre-64 Model 70, or fish out of a $50K bass boat. I sometimes hunt javelina with a custom revolver, when a $300 pawn shop S&W .357 would kill them just as dead.

My only intention, if you can call it that, was to see how long the remaining ice in my chest lasted under "normal" fall hunting conditions in a large portion of the country. Of course, it would have melted fast with constant opening and closing, or hunting down in FL as Mannlicher mentioned.

So you folks that like them, and can afford them, enjoy your your Yetis and Rtics and such. I would if I could.

Geno

Yep, that's why this one is probably 7 years old or so.

1 minute has a cheap and easy fix for them hinges when they break too.

Geno

I had a hard time giving one away, with beer in it, of course the beer was warm, because the cooler was a piece of sh~t !

It's good to compare coolers, I've had them all and the extremes keep ice as well as the rotos, this is from az where they can be put to extreme tests.

The other issue is durability, on a boat or bounced in a 4x4... in that, there is a huge difference. I use the cheaper coolers while summer fishing, fill with ice, catch fish and toss in, sometimes 50 to 100 a trip. That's alot of opening and shutting, again and again. the hinges will fail, screwing in new ones into the plastic body only lasts for a bit then the screws wallar out and the fail again. Finally just strap the lids down works to keep the lids from flying off.

I'm not going to throw whole fish in my roto though. There's a place for each, I know I will wear out the cheapies opening and closing thousands of times in a few years and that's ok.

Kent

I owned a Yeti soft sided cooler at one time that I really liked. I didn’t pay for it per say since I used Cabela points I had earned to purchase it but one evening at a function with mostly people I knew it shown up missing. Couldn’t believe someone stole it while I had my back turned to it at a function with mostly people I knew. At first I thought someone was just screwing with me but it never turned up. I will never own another big $$$ cooler again! Kind of a shame really.

That is a plus, you will never have to worry about someone stealing a coleman, and if they did , it would likely turn up, after they ate your fish....

Kent,

all the bouncing around mine do is in the back of the truck on my way into and out of the woods. Might be worse bouncing if I'm heading home from San Diego on the 5, that freeway is getting really bad in spots. Seems worse than the road into our javelina spot in 18B.

And I can sure see those hinges being a problem after 1000 fish have been tossed into them.

Geno

If they didn't want your warm beer, why would they want the warm fish?

Geno

I'm not sure why anyone would put anything of value in one, but someone suggested that they were good for something.

Another quality feature that Coleman offers is the ability to dump the contents out a lot faster than using that drain plug that broke off after its third use, much unlike those easily replaceable hinges, a simple wooden plug solves this problem permanently, and the removable top makes this a time saver too.